


Gegenschein

by leonidaslion



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Schmoop, Wincest - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-10
Updated: 2011-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-17 22:02:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leonidaslion/pseuds/leonidaslion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing about falling in love during wartime is that it happens on the sly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gegenschein

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [this lovely piece of art](http://dreamlittleyo.livejournal.com/103552.html) ...

The thing about falling in love during wartime is that it happens on the sly. Love creeps in like fog, laying out a low groundcover that hides and deceives and makes you trip over branches and twist your ankle. It’s dangerous, is the thing—God, what isn’t when you’re living in the trenches—but still so beautiful it makes your heart ache when you look at it shining in the moonlight.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

That’s where Sam is now, lying quiet and still with moon spilling in through the open window and painting the room in silver and shadow. He’s thinking about the way fog moves, and how sometimes you can drive right into it without looking, without knowing what’s happening until it’s too late.

Sam never asked for this. He never would have dared.

“Thinking too loud again,” Dean mumbles against Sam’s chest without opening his eyes.

“Thought you were asleep,” Sam responds, and can’t stop himself from running a hand through his brother’s hair.

“I was. You woke me up. Fucker.” Dean’s quiet for a moment while Sam continues to stroke his gel-stiff bristles _(Sam’s going to hide that crap one of these days, just so he can find out what his brother’s hair really feels like)_. Then he adds, “Also, you stole the covers.”

Sam can’t help grinning a little at that and he says, “That one’s all on you, dude. You kicked them off while you were sleeping.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not.”

“Did—ow!”

Sam flinches away from the bite and Dean’s teeth slide free, leaving a red mark on Sam’s chest. He still hasn’t bothered to open his eyes, but the way he smacks his mouth and licks his lips and grins indicates that he’s more awake than asleep by now.

“You jerk!” Sam accuses, rubbing the red spot with the hand that isn’t currently pinned by his brother’s body. “That _hurt_.”

“Aw, want me to kiss it better, baby?” Dean taunts, cracking one eye and glancing up. The glint of his teeth in the moonlight as he grins isn’t at all reassuring.

Sometimes, sharing a bed with Dean feels about as safe as sleeping with a porcupine.

“I think your mouth has already done enough for one night,” Sam points out, rubbing harder. Thankfully, the ache is starting to fade, although Sam’s pretty sure there’ll be a mark there in the morning.

Dean snickers in a way that makes Sam think about all of the other things his brother was doing with his mouth before he curled up against Sam and fell asleep, which makes Sam color a little. One of these days, he’s going to get over the whole blushing thing. One day really, really soon.

Because seriously, if Dean keeps on tonguing his ear right before they interview overly-friendly octogenarians just to watch him squirm, Sam’s going to kill something. Possibly his big brother. No matter how good he is at giving head.

“Seriously, you want to talk?” Dean asks after a moment. His voice is casual, but Sam recognizes that phrase. Over the last few years, it’s become code for ‘on a scale of one to ten, how fucked over are you feeling by the impending apocalypse right now’, and Sam can count the amount of times he’s answered with a single digit on one hand and still have a few fingers left over.

But the war’s over. Dean—Sam’s burping, farting, food-guzzling, gear head brother—took the archangel Michael’s spear and ran it through Lucifer’s chest. Of course, Lucifer was sort of dragon-shaped at the time, and Dean’s eyes were glowing silver from all the ‘God juice’ Castiel and Anna had pumped him full of, but y’know. Details.

“I was thinking about us,” Sam says, his mind wavering between the memory of that unapproachable hero and the reality of the flesh and blood man lying in his arms. All the times Dean almost died during that battle, everything riding on his improbable victory, and Sam’s biggest fear had been that the silver would never leave his brother’s eyes.

Dean’s eyes do look a little silver as he opens them all the way and twists his head to look up, but Sam knows that beneath the moon’s reflection they’re as green as ever. Dean studies him for a moment and then, scrunching his face up, makes an annoyed noise in the back of his throat.

“Christ, Sammy,” he grunts, rolling off of Sam to lie on his back. “We made it through the apocalypse without having this conversation and we have to have it _now_?”

“What, you thought we’d just keep on fucking and not talk about it?”

“That was the general plan, yeah,” Dean says, and the ‘you fucking moron’ at the end isn’t actually spoken, but it’s strongly implied.

A couple of months ago, his brother’s reaction would probably have left Sam defensive, but that was then, as they say. Not all of their fences have been mended, and Sam is still relearning some of Dean’s tells, but the nervous tension running through his brother’s body right now is pretty hard to miss.

“You don’t have to say anything back,” he says softly, “But ... I’d really appreciate it if you’d listen.”

Dean mutters something that would probably make Castiel frown in that half-disappointed, half-stern way he has and then flops back over on top of Sam, right arm flung across Sam’s chest and head nestled against Sam’s shoulder.

“Go ahead and talk,” he announces, shutting his eyes. “I’m going back to sleep.”

Like Sam doesn’t know Dean wants to hear this as much as Sam wants to say it.

But the pretense isn’t going to hurt either of them, and if Dean’s happier playing possum then Sam will settle for that ... for now, anyway.

He’s quiet for a moment, gathering his thoughts, and then he says, “I know that you and I have gone through some rough patches over the past few years—”

“A drug-dealing, double-crossing demon-bitch shaped patch,” Dean interrupts.

Sam’s probably going to be old and grey and deaf before his brother stops beating him over the head with that one. But the words don’t hold the same hurt sting that they used to, and Dean squeezes Sam’s shoulder as he throws out the barb, which pretty much negates all of its effectiveness.

So instead of responding—Sam’s already apologized more often than he can count, and he’s pretty sure Dean actually _heard_ him the last few times—he continues, “And I can’t really remember the last time I said it, so, uh, I love you.”

“Gee, Sammy, try to sound a little less certain next time, will you?” Dean mutters. "All that confidence is kinda intimidating."

Rolling his eyes, Sam reaches over with his left hand and tilts his brother’s face up. Dean’s eyes are still shut—at this point, Sam thinks that’s less to fuck with him and more to prevent him from seeing how deeply this is affecting his brother. As though Sam couldn’t see that with his eyes shut tighter than Dean’s.

“I love you,” Sam repeats, saying the words softly but firmly.

Dean feigns sleep, but the way his throat works gives him away.

As he lowers his hand to grip his brother’s shoulder, a fond smile slips onto Sam’s face. His chest aches expansively—a good ache after all the hollow tenderness he’d felt in the wake of Dean’s deal, and his death, and his own willful, blind participation in his downfall—and on the rush of emotion flowing through him he says it a third time. This time, though, it comes out a little different.

It comes out the way he means it.

“I’m in love with you, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes fly open at that, wide with surprise and a little fear and a whole hell of a lot of hope. He opens his mouth, and before that smart alec, wisecracking self-defense mechanism of his can ruin the moment Sam catches his brother’s lips with his own. He’s kissed Dean before, lots of times—their first time together was mostly kissing and mindless, frenzied humping, both of them drunk out of their minds and too war-weary and comfort-starved to get their shoes off, let alone anything else.

This isn’t anything like that. This is slow, almost lazy. It isn’t a kiss of revelation, although Sam feels new in this moment: feels like he’s discovered a part of himself that grew in the quiet moments between the hails of fire and the lightning storms. After a moment, Sam realizes why the kiss feels so familiar, despite the newness of his declaration.

He’s been in love with Dean for months. It just took his mind a while to catch up to his heart, that’s all. And Dean? Dean’s probably been waiting on him for _years_.

Sure enough, when they part for air, his brother gets out a breathy, “What the hell took you so long?” before Sam shuts him up again.

He can’t seem to stop kissing Dean now that he’s started, and the feeling appears to be mutual, even though Dean’s clearly trying to speak between licks and bites. It’s just talking shit at first—how Sam is such a girl and Dean is an irresistible sex machine and Dean’s thinking about making Sam sit up and beg for it a bit to make up for being such a dumb ass, and how did he get into Stanford anyway, blow the admissions board? Then Dean’s hand is in Sam’s hair, gripping and tugging and the words change. They soften as Dean lowers his defenses until he’s naked in the moonlight, and whispering Sam’s name, and _love you, loved you for so long, never letting you go_.

“Goddamn gorgeous,” Dean says, breath hot on Sam’s mouth, and Sam pulls him even closer, and yes. Yes, this. Yes to Dean, always.

Eventually, the feverish kisses cool and slow into something easier and comforting. Dean pulls away first, tucking his chin back down and nuzzling into a more comfortable position, head pillowed on Sam’s chest. He’s still kissing Sam’s skin in a lazy way that makes Sam feel safe like nothing else in the world, but finally even that trails off and they’re just lying there, twined up in each other the same as they have been for years.

 _Maybe it was always leading here,_ Sam thinks as he strokes a hand up and down Dean’s back. He doesn’t think the word Destiny, but he feels it, deep in is chest. He recognizes it in the way that this already feels familiar—comfortable and _right_ in a way it probably shouldn’t.

“Dude,” Dean says abruptly, with a tone of realization, “I fought a dragon for you.”

“I know, Dean. I was there, remember?”

“Yeah,” Dean snorts. “Tied _naked_ to an _altar_.”

And hadn’t that just been the highlight of Sam’s life: getting ogled first by a bunch of over-zealous Satan-worshippers and then by a whole freaking host of angels.

“What’s your point?” Because Dean is clearly going somewhere with this, even if Sam’s a little clueless as to just where that somewhere is.

“Just—I slew the dragon and saved the damsel in distress.” Sam can feel his brother grin against his chest. “Guess that makes me the knight in shining armor.”

Sam can’t even find it in himself to be a little annoyed at being called a girl. Again. God, it’s good to have his big brother back.

“Guess so,” he agrees, kissing the top of his brother’s head. “Tell you something else.”

“Mm?”

“The damsel and the knight? They get to live happy ever after.”

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Driving into a fog bank is terrifying. It turns the familiar into strange, shifting shapes: is easy to get lost in. But the thing is ... the thing is, once you’re there, you can see again. The fog covers everything, it colors the way you see the world, and suddenly that feels like the most beautiful, precious gift you’ve ever received.

Because he’s there, standing next to you, and if you trip over one of those branches or fall into a ditch? He’s gonna catch you.

And you’ll catch him right back.


End file.
